The sale of Guy Harvey Sportswear supports the marine resource in many different ways with its sale of each Guy Harvey product, a contribution is made to the GHOF
During the spring sampling season, three ongoing projects of the Florida Program for Shark Research at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History, one in collaboration with researchers from Florida State University (FSU), focused on the distribution and movements of adult and subadult sawfishes in the southern portion of its Florida range.
We produced a survey of the waters surrounding U.S. Navy properties in the Key West region in order to determine the current status of sawfishes in those areas for the U.S. Navy/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Because of obvious security constraints, we were the first fish biologists to sample in these waters in decades.
Concurrently, in conjunction with Dean Grubbs and fellow FSU scientists and the John Carlson of the National Marine Fisheries Service, we sampled the middle and lower Keys and Tortugas region and Florida Bay, catching and satellite tagging eleven sawfishes. Satellite tags give long time and distance of movement information and we hope our tagging will help us better understand seasonal horizontal (up and down the coast) and vertical (depth) movements of the critters.
We also caught and multiple tagged two large adults in Florida Bay, the tags being traditional “spaghetti,” satellite, and active acoustic models. The last allowed us to manually track the minute to minute movements using a receiver held under the boat. Our first saw was “lost” within the first hour or so as it gave us the slip by scooting over a shallow bank, then boogying before we could detect its signal. Having learned our lesson, on our second capture we got in 38 hours of tracking over three days, including day-night comparisons. The sawfish moved about in deeper channels by day, then moved onto shallow, seagrass beds by night. It chose the same shallow grassy area on successive nights, demonstrating some short-term site fidelity. Next spring we plan to initiate placement of underwater listening stations on the bottom and tag the sawfishes with passive acoustic tags. These tags will leave a unique “bleep” on any receiver as the sawfish swims near, allowing us to track localized movements over longer periods and larger areas. We also will continue to satellite tag these and other sawfishes.
While sampling for sawfishes we also caught many sharks and rays. All of these animals also were measured, sexed, sampled (tissue for DNA) and tagged as part of ongoing studies of their biology and movement patterns. We also continued our work in Indian River Lagoon (IRL), where we began tagging young bull sharks with spaghetti and passive acoustic tags in a “new” region for us, the St. Lucie River estuary. This work is being done with our colleague, David Snyder, of Continental Shelf Associates. We also continue to download data from our underwater array of receivers in Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River and the northern IRL, where tagged bull sharks and rays still roam.
During this time period we put 5000 miles in land travel on the Guy Harvey adorned Hell’s Bay and God only knows how many sea miles on our faithful vessel!
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Guy Harvey art supports efforts to the IGFA and NCMC in their "Take Marlin Off the Menu" effort
Marlin populations throughout the world are being wiped out by commercial overfishing. Concerned about the health of billfish fisheries, the IGFA and the National Coalition for Marine Conservation joined forces in 2008 to create the “Take Marlin off the Menu” campaign. In just two short years, the campaign gained the support of such luminaries as Wolfgang Puck and the Wegmans Supermarket chain – as well as the attention of U.S. policymakers. Their support hinged largely on an Economic Analysis of International Billfish Markets which shows that the economic value of the U.S. billfish trade is almost nil in relation to the rest of the U.S. commercial fishing industry.
This new marlin artwork from Guy Harvey was created to support this important effort. It is currently illegal to harvest or import Atlantic-caught billfish into the U.S., but fish caught in the Pacific Ocean flood into U.S. markets in substantial numbers, threatening the survival of these fisheries. The Billfish Conservation Act of 2011 (S. 1451 and H.R. 2706), introduced into Congress on July 29, would close U.S. commercial markets to Pacific billfish, preventing their sale and importation (excluding Hawaii and Pacific Insular Island Area). In short, this important bipartisan legislation will help restore billfish populations and improve recreational fishing opportunities while concurrently creating jobs and other economic benefits.
Your support of the Billfish Conservation Act would close the U.S. to commercial billfish harvest, importation and sale. It would have a negligible impact on the commercial industry in the U.S. while helping increase the abundance of these important apex predators as well as the value of the recreational fishery, which brings in billions of dollars annually but has a minimal impact on billfish populations.
To learn how you can help support this important Take Marlin off the Menu effort please contact the IGFA at www.IGFA.org or NCMC www.savethefish.org
— Bill
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As some of you know, over the past ~3 months, we have been developing web sites to showcase the unprecedented results we are getting from the shark tracking research of the GHRI/GHOF/NSUOC and our partners. I am pleased to announce that we are now ready to go public with these web sites.
We’ve started with our tiger shark tracking results from the Atlantic and created interactive web sites that provide controls for displaying static or animated, long-term shark movements. The sites have several interaction options on the control panel on the right of the maps, and I think they are mostly self-explanatory.
To start off viewing these sites, please click on:
In the 2nd box in the control panel, select the shark “Correia” and click on “Animate”. That will start the animation (a 2-year track).
Based on the underlying programming, these sites are best viewed using the web browsers Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 9.
There are quite a few interactive viewing options programmed, including changing the speed of the tracks and viewing the tracks with and without detection points. Furthermore, when the animation is complete and the track becomes static, you can hover the cursor over each point to see detailed detection point information. If you are interested, please explore the various interactive options.
Logos of our sponsors and key partners and links to their web sites are provided. We are truly indebted to them for their critical support of this groundbreaking research.
We are still hearing from many of the sharks and their movements will be updated every 1-2 weeks as time permits. We welcome your comments and feedback for improvement, and would be grateful if you would spread the word about these sites. Like all web sites, this is a work in progress and we will continue to improve the cosmetics and information content as we make further discoveries about the fascinating migration patterns of these remarkable sharks. Web sites for our other shark and billfish species tracking research will follow.
The web site team is:
Matt Johnston (NSU OC)
Mahmood Shivji (GHRI/NSUOC)
Brad Wetherbee (GHRI/NSUOC/URI)
Web site development sponsored by the NSUOC and GHRI.
Best wishes,
Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
In what has become a veritable campaign of misinformation, Pew Environment Group issued yet another statement in support of setting annual catch limits on marine fisheries species without the benefit of science-based assessments. Taking the campaign to a new level, Pew is now revising history to make its points:
Holly Binns, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Southeast Fish Conservation Campaign, issued the following statement [Aug. 8] in response to the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s 8 to 5 vote to approve plans to prevent overfishing that protect dozens of species by setting science-based catch limits.
“‘The council has taken a forward-looking approach that allows managers to set scientifically sound fishing limits now before species suffer population declines. This proactive strategy is necessary to avoid what happened with South Atlantic red snapper, which is in such severe trouble that a fishing moratorium was needed in 2010 to save the species.’
“‘This plan will help avert steeper restrictions in the future, setting a course towards restoring a healthy, balanced ocean ecosystem. It is like visiting the doctor for preventive care, rather than waiting until you end up in the emergency room.’”
There are so many misstatements of fact in that statement, it is hard to know where to begin. For starters, there is nothing “scientifically sound” about setting catch limits without the benefit of a stock assessment. Those catch limits are going to be set by SWAG — scientific wild-ass guess – which doesn’t necessarily bother an environmentalist but does strike a nerve with anglers and others who actually use America’s public resources.
Second, the South Atlantic red snapper crisis came about precisely because NOAA Fisheries neglected to do a stock assessment for decades — the exact course of action Pew is advocating now for all marine fisheries. In a sense, the Council managed that fishery by SWAG and got it horribly wrong, so wrong that when they finally did do an assessment, they almost had to close the bottom of the entire South Atlantic to fix it. And ironically, if I recall correctly, Pew was very much in favor of that closure.
Third, as exemplified by South Atlantic red snapper, nothing about setting limits based on SWAGs is going to prevent managers from having to enact steeper restrictions in the future when and if an assessment finally shows them how radically wrong those limits are. And, in the most gaping fault with Pew’s logic, once the catch limits are set without an assessment, there is no motivation for managers to spend the money and resources to actually examine the state of the stock with an assessment. Red snapper became a crisis after the stock assessment. If they had never done an assessment — and NOAA Fisheries has shown a systemic reluctance to expend resources on assessments in recreational fisheries — red snapper would still be heading merrily down the drain, and no one would be the wiser.
Pew likes to say that managing this way is “preventative” medicine, and it’s better than ending up in the emergency room. In reality, they are advocating exactly the opposite. They are advocating that you never visit the doctor, never run any tests, never draw blood or have an x-ray. And by time you realize there is a problem, you go straight to the morgue.
That is no way to manage a fishery.
There are rational ways to manage wildlife resources that are employed all over this country. Anglers are seeking the same for marine species, no more, no less. But we are not going to get there by revising history and distorting reality.
Jeff
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Responding to last week’s announcement from the Government of the Bahamas that it will prohibit all commercial shark fishing in its more than 240,000 square miles of territorial water, Dr. Harvey commented: “I am very impressed and pleased that the Government of the Bahamas has taken the necessary and correct step to further protect its marine resources from over-exploitation by both local and foreign interests. This new legislation compliments the ban on commercial long line fishing enacted 20 years ago. The ban on commercial shark fishing and exportation by shark by-products is a huge step in the conservation of sharks worldwide.”
Through the Bahamas National Trust (BNT), Dr. Harvey met with government officials last March to add his voice and influence as a highly respected conservationist to call for strict regulations to ban the commercial fishing of all sharks in The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands sweeping across 500 miles of open ocean. The Bahamas is the fourth country to ban shark fishing after Honduras, the Maldives and Palau. Estimates are that more than 70 million sharks are killed annually around the world.
One of the premier shark-watching destinations for divers, reeling in $800 million over the past 20 years for the Bahamian national economy, sharks, according to Dr. Harvey, were worth much more alive than dead.
“Many countries have seen their populations of sharks annihilated by commercial over-exploitation,” said Dr. Harvey. “Research has shown that shark populations do not recover. Other countries will take encouragement from the Bahamas’ very bold move. They are realizing, very quickly, the value of the living shark in maintaining the health of reef ecosystems. In addition, the economic value of a living shark to ecotourism is now widely accepted as a sustainable and non-consumptive use of a marine resource with many additional benefits to respective island nations.”
Last year, following news that a Bahamian seafood company was considering exporting sharks to the Far East, the BNT along with the U.S. based Pew Environmental Group and individual conservationists, such as Dr. Guy Harvey, who created a “Protect Bahamian Sharks” campaign logo and poster, initiated a petition drive to force the issue of banning commercial shark-fishing. The government upon receiving a petition signed by 5,000 Bahamian residents acted this week to protect the some 40 sharks species found in Bahamian waters.
With shark populations around the world continuing to spiral downward, marine scientists such as Dr. Guy Harvey, are working around the clock to give these magnificent animals a fighting chance for survival. Dr. Harvey is also seeding cultural change in the structure of shark fishing tournaments to creating Catch and Release divisions.
Last month, he brought his cause into the epicenter of one of the nation’s oldest and largest shark fishing tournaments in Ocean City, Maryland. Thanks in part to his efforts and a willingness to continue to adapt by the tournament founders and organizers, The Ocean City Shark Tournament’s cash and prize package payment in the catch and release division increased to over $15,000.
In May, the Second Annual Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge, a catch and release only tournament, was held on the West Coast of Florida in Punta Gorda. The tournament, created as a model for catch and release only shark tournament formats, drew some 3,000 competitors and spectators and paid out over $15,000 in cash and prizes.
In related shark conservation activity, Dr. Harvey offered his artistic talent and foundation sponsorship funding in support of the recent Circle Hook Symposium held in Miami. The symposium, hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is an international gathering of scientists, resource managers and constituents convening to discuss the performance and use of circle hooks in commercial, recreational and artisanal fisheries. While it is legal to use a J-hook to fish for sharks, experts such as Dr. Harvey recommend using a circle hook, where the barb points inward and not outward.
The oceans just got a little safer for sharks, and conservationist, artist and scientist —Guy Harvey couldn’t be more pleased.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear with a varied selection of shirts with fish, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation recently presented a $100,000 donation to the Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) at Nova Southeastern University during a ceremony at the new Guy Harvey Inc. world headquarters in Davie, FL. A significant part of these funds were raised from the sale of Guy Harvey sportswear. You may not know this, but you, the Guy Harvey customer helped provide these funds with your last Guy Harvey clothing purchase. Money is raised for ocean conservation efforts from the sale of every Guy Harvey shirt, Guy Harvey sandal, Guy Harvey hat, Guy Harvey belt, Guy Harvey jacket and all Guy Harvey clothing items. This $100,000 will be used to support the ongoing fishery research projects at the GHRI.
Photo, from left to right: Dr. Mahmood Shivji, Director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute; Guy Harvey; Dr. George Hanbury II, President & COO of NSU; Steve Stock, President of Guy Harvey Inc. and the GHOF; John Santulli, VP Facilities Management, NSU; Dr. Richard Dodge, Dean of NSU’s Oceanographic Center
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
On any given dive in the Cayman Islands the chances of encountering any species of shark are very slim. Why is this? The primary reason is that most of the large coastal and ocean sharks have been caught in the last fifty years by long line fishing efforts directed at tuna and swordfish and more recently at sharks themselves.
Nowadays, sharks are kept by such industrial fishing operations which remove the fins and sell them to Asian interests. Many species of ocean going sharks such as blues, tigers, hammerheads, makos, threshers and oceanic whitetip sharks pass by our islands and sea mounts, and have extensive ranges so are considered highly migratory species. These have been heavily fished by high seas long lining operators. Other species exhibit more site fidelity and have a home range such as the Caribbean reef shark and the blacktip shark, which are the species we are more likely to encounter here.
To the untrained, eye blacktips are similar to the reef shark at typically six feet long, with a large dorsal fin and black tips on the pectoral fins. They have a pointed nose and compact body built for speed. They can grow to eight feet and are found worldwide in tropical and subtropical waters. Blacktip sharks feed over continental shelves on schooling fish such as sardines, jacks and mackerels. On the Pacific side of Panama, I have filmed them feeding on green jacks and scads along with schools of yellowfin tuna and spotted dolphins. In South Africa, blacktips are major predators on the annual sardine run. In Florida, the blacktip shark and the similar looking spinner shark are common near shore predators of mullet, sardines and jacks, and they are frequently caught by anglers fishing from the beach.
Around the Cayman Islands, blacktips are found in the shallow sounds and flats bordered by mangroves, and are primarily fish eaters, but will also consume sting rays and crustaceans. There is a very narrow shelf area here, so the black tip sharks keep to the flats and back reef areas that provide the most food.
An Oceanic Whitetip Shark which ate a trolled bait intended for marlin. Photo Courtesy of Richard Gibson
In complete contrast, the oceanic whitetip shark (OWS) is found roaming the open blue water and rarely comes close to shore. In looking at their shape, you know they are designed for the open ocean habitat. They are large animals with robust bodies, typically about eight feet, but growing up to twelve feet long. They are characterized by their very long, broad pectoral fins, with blotchy white tips as with all their other fins.
They have been a primary target in the shark fin trade and now their populations may be as low as 1% of their pre-exploitation levels in the western Atlantic. They used to be the most abundant “large” animal (over 100lb.) on the planet. Found in all the world’s tropical oceans, typically they associate with flotsam and those species of fish that congregate around flotsam and with migrating marine mammals such as whales and dolphins. They are usually solitary and slow moving, conserving energy between meals which may be weeks apart. Often, they are accompanied by pilot fish and rainbow runners. They are very inquisitive and will investigate anything floating looking for carrion. Tiger sharks exhibit similar behavior.
The only time we see OWS is when we go fishing offshore looking for dolphin fish, tuna and marlin. They may be encountered around a school of dolphin fish and rainbow runners in association with a floating log or shipping pallet. Off Jamaica, I have seen OWS following pilot whales and sometimes spotted dolphins. During the recently held Cayman Island International Fishing Tournament, Oliver Dubock, a PhD student working with the DoE and Overseas Territory Environment Programme (OTEP), tagged two OWS (caught by anglers participating in the tournament) with electronic tags to learn more about their natural history and migrations. Knowing that this species spends a lot of time at or near the surface, the satellite tags will pin point their migrations around the Cayman Islands. More information will be forthcoming. We know very little about the life history of this species which is on the verge of extinction and is listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Open water shark interactive dives, with this species, are safely conducted in the Caribbean and Bahamas without incident, in spite of their inquisitive nature and reputation. But divers are cautioned to interact with the OWS with extreme caution.
If you are diving, snorkeling or fishing and encounter one of these rare species, please call the Dept. of Environment and let them know the location, date, species, approximate size and sex. If you catch a blacktip or an ocean whitetip shark, then take the necessary measurements and photos as well as a tissue sample (fin clip) and then please release them alive.
It is our collective responsibility to conserve the marine environment and maintain the biodiversity of the planet.
Fish responsibly and dive safely.
— Guy Harvey
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Following the incredible Cayman Islands Squash tournament April 3 – 9, I got going on finishing the Grouper Moon documentary which I started in mid- February. By way of a recap, producer/cameraman George Schellenger and I spent 6 days in Little Cayman shooting the research work being done by the REEF personnel (please visit www.REEF.org) and volunteers along with staff from the Department of Environment, Cayman Island Government.
The timing was such that we experienced the dusk spawn of about 2500 Nassau groupers a few days after the full moon in February. We shot all the daytime census-taking and measuring of adults (using lasers mounted on underwater cameras) gathered for the spawn. We conducted many interviews with the different interest and user groups. It was a very comprehensive shoot.
So… on to Grand Cayman. In order to show all the marine conservation interests at work, I scheduled a four day shoot around Grand Cayman. I wanted to show what Grand Cayman has to offer on and under the water. We started out with an hour long helicopter tour with Jerome and Natalie of Cayman Helicopters, who run a superb heli-experience which can be customized, depending on what you want to see and achieve. That afternoon we dived the Kittiwake and were lucky as a huge school of horse-eye jacks enveloped the superstructure making an awesome scene in the 100 foot viz water.
Andi is hooked up
In addition, there were bar jacks, rainbow runner, squid, tons of juvenile squirrelfish, copper sweepers, blue tangs and other grazing reef fish taking advantage of the new growth of algae up and down the steel hull. An 80 pound goliath grouper has also adopted the wreck. George and I then went to the sandbar to get some stingray footage before heading out to Hammerhead Hill, one of my favorite north wall dives. We encountered groups of spotted eagle rays, a hawksbill turtle, six different species of groupers, and a big hogfish being cleaned by some mini wrasses. Just too cool! Enough for one day of action packed diving.
Day 2 and 3, we were aboard the “Hit ‘n’ Run”, a well maintained 40 foot Luhrs, owned and captained by Derrin Ebanks. I coerced, friend and restaurant owner, Andi Marcher (of “Ragazzi” and “Luca” fame) to come along with my son Alex to be anglers. In two days they each caught two fine blue marlin. The weather was just perfect…it never gets too calm for me, particularly when you are blue marlin fishing.
Day 2 started early. While we waited for the charter boat to arrive, we were amazed at the eagle rays, big sting rays, tarpon and bonefish that were rooting around in the sand by the dock. We left Morgan’s Harbour at the crack of 8 a.m. and trolled about a mile off the coast heading west toward the 12 mile bank all the time looking for frigate birds that would signal the presence of dolphin or marlin. We missed a couple of them, one was a cheap shot but the second was a ripper that had captain Derrin doing a dance on the flybridge.
Blue Marlin, just prior to release
I saw her come in fast from the right side as she crashed the short right lure, then came back around in a swirl for the bite with dorsal and bill out. The big marlin did not come tight and again came in on the same lure. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up when I saw the height of her dorsal fin. She ate this time, was hooked and started jumping straight away going off to the right and then (as a blue marlin can) turned around and headed off to the left like a jetski on steroids. Unfortunately, she crossed the left rigger line and that reel also started howling. Somehow…. the hook came out and after a series of fabulous grey-hounding jumps ….she said goodbye. Lots of great action but no results… and it was only 11 a.m.
We trolled down to 12 mile Bank, and worked the NE tip of this seamount before heading to the SW tip as the current was coming from the NW. This three mile long seamount comes up from 3,500 feet to 90 feet from the surface. You need to fish on that end when the current is coming from the west. A yellowfin tuna popped up chasing flying fish, then a couple more. Cool. This was the place to be. Where there are tuna frolicking, a marlin will be nearby. Sure enough, the right rigger went down, but no hook-up. The marlin blazed over to the left rigger and we were tight. Andi was the angler on 30# test which is ideal tackle for a marlin of 125#. After lots of jumps far away, Andi got the marlin to the boat and I deployed the PSAT(Pop-up Satellite Archival Tag) in the marlin’s left shoulder. I got my gear on and jumped in to film the release. Very good. It was carrying a 3-month PSAT, and headed into the blue. No more bites for the day as we trolled home in perfect weather. That evening, we had a couple of beers at the little restaurant on the Morgan’s Harbour dock. A perfect end to the day.
See our next week’s blog for Part II
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The colorful and charismatic lionfish are proliferating on the coral reefs of Bermuda, Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean. Although non-native to the Atlantic, it’s becoming hard to miss them in many areas. That’s good, you might be thinking. Divers spend a lot of money to travel to coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific where these fishes are native and provide visual delights for underwater photographers. Whip out those cameras — an added attraction has shown up to add zing to the diving experience on Atlantic coral reefs, you say.
Unfortunately, like most invasive species scenarios – recall the ecological and economic mess created by the infamous zebra mussel - the lionfish introduction and rapid geographic spread is proving far from ecologically harmless to Atlantic coral reefs. In fact, scientists are quite concerned that lionfish may be completely reinventing the western north Atlantic coral reef ecosystem – permanently!
What are these lionfish doing in the Atlantic in the first place and what’s going on? Here’s some background: Lionfish belong to the scorpionfish family (which includes the venomous scorpionfish and stonefish). Even if you don’t dive you’ve likely seen them as they are very popular in the aquarium trade.
Two species are now known to occur in the western Atlantic: the red lionfish (Pterois volitans) and the devil firefish (Pterois miles), with the former occurring in much greater numbers. The two species are similar looking and it took DNA evidence to confirm that there are indeed two species that have invaded the Atlantic. They’ve been around for a while, with the first observation in the Atlantic occurring near Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1985! Considered a rarity at first, lionfish populations have exploded over the past 25 years and especially over the past decade, spreading far north and south. They now range at least from Bermuda to Venezuela. It’s really worth tracking their remarkable and disconcertingly fast spread at: http://nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/fish/Lionfishanimation.gif. If you dive in the Bahamas you’ll know that they are over running the reefs.
So what’s the worry?
Invasive Lionfish in the Bahamas. Photo: Courtesy of B. Watts
It’s an ecological nightmare. In spite of a mountain of unknowns, researchers agree on a few key points: lionfish are voracious predators and prolific breeders. They devour the young of other reef fish species, including several commercially important species, and even crustaceans such as newborn lobsters.
In addition to their own direct impact on reducing other fish populations by predation, lionfish are outcompeting native fishes for food. Not a good scene for native fishes. Lionfish can suck up about 80% of all small or immature fish in a section of reef in only five weeks. Their predation on young herbivorous fish also means reduced control of algae, which can overgrow and kill coral.
How bad is it? There are enormous concerns that lionfish will completely change and possibly destroy Atlantic coral reefs by overrunning them and shrinking their native biodiversity, and that the ongoing damage is severe and possibly irreparable. So far, there is no known quick-fix, and the problem is escalating exponentially.
Lionfish are the lions of the Atlantic reefs; they sit enthroned near the top of the food web where almost nothing eats them. Scientists don’t fully understand why lionfish have no natural predators in the Atlantic. Observed cases of lionfish being eaten by other fish are so few that they can be counted on one hand. Would-be predators seem to shy away from the lionfish’s poisonous appearance – even when lionfish are in their larval stage. Possibly for this reason, invasive lionfish have encountered practically no natural opposition since their introduction, when the first individuals were probably dumped into the Atlantic as unwanted aquarium pets. Without effective population control, the lionfish – also called the red firefish – spread like, well, wildfire.
It’s easy to see why. Lionfish reach sexual maturity in only about one year. For the rest of their adult lives, female lionfish lay batches of 25,000-30,000 eggs almost twice a week (about every four days). Do the math, and you will quickly discover what this means. Each year, there are easily over two million eggs for each female lionfish. These eggs quickly develop into living vacuum cleaners. Each lionfish eats fish up to two-thirds of its own size, and lionfish stomachs stretch up to thirty times their normal size when feeding.
Ironically, studies are showing that lionfish are now present in higher densities in some Atlantic regions than they are in their native Indo-pacific habitats! Maybe the Atlantic environment is just making female and male lionfish more romantic. Or maybe it’s a lack of predator thing. Or maybe their Atlantic prey have fewer defenses?
So, what can be done? Many scientists think that the rapid pace of lionfish population growth and geographic spread means that nothing can completely stop the destruction by this invading beauty. But perhaps the momentum can be slowed if control measures are quickly and widely implemented.
Lionfish meat is excellent in taste and texture, and lionfish dishes have been added to the menus of many exclusive restaurants. In fact, the US federal government’s chief fisheries management agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed an “Eat Lionfish” campaign to increase the public’s awareness of the issue and create a consumer market for this tasty invader. Several coastal communities host fishing events called lionfish derbies where prizes go to the anglers who catch the most, and an enormous celebratory barbecue comes at the end of each derby. Many recreational anglers would attest that, after a long day of fishing, grilled lionfish with a cold beer is a hard treat to beat!
These triumphs, however, are small ones. Fishing alone cannot solve the lionfish problem. It will also take both education and dedication. As an increasingly prominent marine “poster child” against non-native species release, the lionfish example further proves that release can have unpredictable, unprecedented, and literally dire consequences. Please never release your exotic pets. A simple desire to let one animal “have a better life” in the wild can so easily create an irreparable ecosystem and economic mess.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
Blackfin tuna have torpedo shaped bodies, big bold black eyes, and a glowing bronze band along their flank, highlighting the black back and wide-spread pectoral fins
My most memorable encounters with blackfins were off Belize while filming whale sharks. The mixed schools of blackfins, skipjack tuna and bonitos were corralling small sardines, which in turn attracted the attention of young whale sharks. Snorkeling was the way to go. With video camera in hand, I got some superb footage of the combined effect of the tunas corralling the prey and the whale shark taking advantage of the bonanza. The sardines would swim into the open mouth of the whale shark at the surface to escape the bombardment by tunas. The ever-present silky sharks also joined in the food fest.
Blackfins are the most common small tuna around the Cayman Islands and can be caught year round along the deep drop off, but tend to aggregate around the ends of the islands where the current hits the wall. They are plentiful at 12 Mile Bank, and are targeted by commercial and sports fishermen for use as bait. Anglers use a small feather lure, pink works well, trolled at 4 – 8 knots to catch these scrappy fighters. They are used for live bait to catch bigger yellowfin tuna, wahoos or blue marlin. They are good food fare in their own right but hardly ever reach eight pounds in our waters.
The best way to see blackfins here is to snorkel off the end of 12 Mile bank, either the NE corner or the SW corner in the deep water close to the edge. You can drift and get picked up by your boat to repeat the drift and see these speedsters cruising by. You are likely to encounter other blue water species like rainbow runners, flying fish, wahoos and even the odd blue marlin.
For some reason, the full grown blackfins of 20-40 pounds do not frequent the waters of the central Caribbean. In Florida, the Gulf of Mexico and further south to Central America, they come jumbo-sized averaging 25 pounds. In Jamaica and Cayman, I have caught many in the half pound size range, which are less than a year old. This suggests that these juveniles migrate to the western and northern Caribbean as adults in search of better feeding opportunities. When and how they complete the cycle is not known as little migratory research has been done on this species. The known range for blackfins is from the NE of the USA as far south as Brazil and they are limited to the western Atlantic, unlike many of their relatives like the yellowfin tuna and skipjack tuna that are cosmopolitan species.
If you see black fin tuna on a menu in a local restaurant as sushi, seared or sautéed, give it a try, you will be happy with your choice
In Florida, blackfin tuna have an extended spawning season from April to October and from May to September in the Gulf of Mexico. It is likely they spawn year round in the Caribbean, as I have seen active gonads in blackfins caught here in every month.
Blackfins feed largely on pelagic crustaceans, larvae and juvenile crabs, shrimp, squid as well as small fish and fish larvae. I have often seen them plunder schools of juvenile puffer fish and sardines frequently clearing the surface in high jumps as they come speeding from below onto the prey at the surface. They also feed on any juvenile fish that shelter beneath flotsam. In this situation, if frigate birds are around, they will swoop down and pick the sargassum weed up in their bill, fly several feet, then drop the weed so as to expose the small fish hiding beneath the weed to the tunas. I have yet to see how this benefits the frigate bird!
In turn, blackfin tuna are consumed by larger tunas, king mackerel, barracudas, wahoo and blue marlin, plus a variety of fast ocean-going sharks. The sight of a blue marlin chasing blackfins is amazing— the ocean drama of predator-prey interaction at its best.
If you see black fin tuna on a menu in a local restaurant as sushi, seared or sautéed, give it a try, you will be happy with your choice. They are fished sustainably here in Cayman and elsewhere in their range. It is our collective responsibility to conserve the marine environment and maintain the biodiversity of the planet.
Dive safely, fish responsibly.
—Guy Harvey
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I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
Concurrently, in conjunction with Dean Grubbs and fellow FSU scientists and the John Carlson of the National Marine Fisheries Service, we sampled the middle and lower Keys and Tortugas region and Florida Bay, catching and satellite tagging eleven sawfishes. Satellite tags give long time and distance of movement information and we hope our tagging will help us better understand seasonal horizontal (up and down the coast) and vertical (depth) movements of the critters.
While sampling for sawfishes we also caught many sharks and rays. All of these animals also were measured, sexed, sampled (tissue for DNA) and tagged as part of ongoing studies of their biology and movement patterns. We also continued our work in Indian River Lagoon (IRL), where we began tagging young bull sharks with spaghetti and passive acoustic tags in a “new” region for us, the St. Lucie River estuary. This work is being done with our colleague, David Snyder, of Continental Shelf Associates. We also continue to download data from our underwater array of receivers in Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River and the northern IRL, where tagged bull sharks and rays still roam.
I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
